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Attention: All Who Love Pacific Beach and Want to Make it Safer and Better!

Rally and Walk for a Safer PB
Friday, January 27, 5:30 pm

Meet on the Ocean Boardwalk just south of Crystal Pier
(Walk should be finished by 6:30 pm)

It’s a new year and looking back over the last few years, it is clear that Pacific Beach has made tremendous strides toward reaching its full potential as the gem of San Diego that we all know it is. However, problems in our business district have always been at the top of our SavePB surveys, and we believe 2012 is the year we will finally be able to fix those problems. Here is an event that will get us on our way toward achieving that goal!

If you have ever been concerned about:

Too many bars

Too many DUI

And high crime

In our PB business district, this is a MUST ATTEND event!

After our walk, we encourage you to eat dinner at your favorite PB restaurant and shop at your favorite PB store to help support our many good and responsible businesses.

We need to change the course of our business district now! We can’t keep going in the direction we have been going – Our main business area has 66 alcohol licenses where only 10 should be allowed; ABC keeps granting more alcohol licenses with inadequate conditions; more and more restaurants are functioning like bars; crime and DUI in our main business area are more than 5 times the city-wide average; and PB continues to rank as the #1 community in San Diego for DUI and violent crime.

Thankfully, PB’s residential areas have very low crime and are very safe, BUT the situation in our business district gives our entire community a black eye and drives off fearful residents and tourists alike.This Rally and Walk are a powerful way to let our city officials know what we want and what we expect them to do. Last year, the PB Planning Group (PBPG; pbplanning.org) issued a thoroughly-researched report that covers all the issues in detail and describes the solutions used successfully by other cities. The PBPG has twice requested that city officials explore these solutions, but our Councilmember Kevin Faulconer and Mayor Jerry Sanders have continued to ignore these requests and PB’s problems.

City officials, including Kevin Faulconer and Jerry Sanders, will not be able to ignore hundreds of concerned PB citizens rallying and walking to bring attention to the problems and the proven solutions for their community.

The Proven Solutions include three components:

All new alcohol-licensed businesses obtain a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) through an open and public city process. Conditions can be included to minimize crime and negative impacts. Elected city officials can be held accountable.

A dedicated police officer is funded by a sliding-scale, cost-recovery fee on all alcohol-licensed businesses to monitor and enforce and ensure best and responsible business practices.

Existing alcohol-licensed businesses are “grandfathered-in,” but repeated serious violations can trigger the need for a CUP.

After Ventura adopted these solutions, police calls for service went down 60% and DUI crashes decreased by 30%.

All other major cities in California have adopted a CUP-based solution, why can’t San Diego?

Please walk with us and bring your family, friends and neighbors. It will only take an hour of your time to make your opinion heard and to make a difference in PB’s future.

Some signs will be provided for walkers to carry, but feel free to make your own.